University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

An Explanation

It wasn't until after the
Vice President departed
Charlottesville that I learned of
several problems which
occurred during his appearance
at University Hall, but I feel a
public apology to certain
members of the University
community is very much in
order, and I hope a brief
explanation will clear up a few
questions for all concerned.

1) Prohibition of books and
umbrellas.

It never even occurred to us
that these items would be
prohibited (apparently out of
an abundance of caution - so
that they couldn't be used as
missiles), or an announcement
to this effect would have been
published in advance. We did
inquire about personal cameras
and learned that they would be
permitted, subject to screening,
but were not to be encouraged,
so we decided not to make any
announcement on cameras at
all.

2) Speaker failures on one
side of the hall and in the
overflow areas in the
outside hallways.

All of the equipment was
tested extensively by U-Hall
technicians prior to Tuesday
night, but the network
television crews didn't feel
they were receiving adequate
audio feed signal for their
recordings and made some
changes on the spot. This
action inadvertently cut out
certain U-Hall speaker feeds,
but those in a position to
attempt to correct it were
unaware that the problem
existed.

3) After standing in line in
the rain for an extended period
of time a fairly substantial
number of people had to be
turned away altogether.

A combination of factors
contributed to this unhappy
result. First, the crowd was
considerably larger than
anticipated. Such factors as
impending exams and end of
semester papers for students,
the unfavorable weather
forecast, and the widely
proclaimed "boycott" figured
to hold down attendance, as
well as the reluctance of some
individuals to submit to
security screening and the
"avoid the crush and listen to
it on radio or TV" syndrome.

More frustrating, I'm sure,
for many was the known or
later learned fact that all the
seats behind the stage were
empty. The simple word
security is not by itself an
adequate or satisfying answer,
but this was a non-negotiable
requirement which we had to
accept to be able to host the
Vice President for a large
public audience.

I am not at liberty to
discuss security arrangements
in detail, but our flexibility
was quite limited in certain
areas and the coordination
problems with several different
organizations is quite complex.
I think it is a credit to the
many different elements
involved that things went as
smoothly for most of the
audience as they did.

I believe it is worth
mentioning that one of the
secret service agents told me
after it was over that the crowd